The Rev. David Russell has been the pastor of Saint John's since February 2001. This is his first congregation as pastor.

Pastor Russell is a native Tennessean, albeit without a strong Southern accent. Before coming to Hartsburg by way of Long Island , he lived in several states.  

Shortly after arriving in Hartsburg, Pastor Russell met Karen Strampp while celebrating a wedding at Immanuel Lutheran Church in nearby Lincoln , Illinois , while they were without a pastor. Karen, who is the secretary, choir director, and organist at Immanuel, became Karen Russell shortly after that. Before the wedding, they became engaged on a trip to visit the campus of the University of Notre Dame . Pastor Russell is a proud husband now.  

Pastor Russell is, it seems, a perpetual student, having completed his B.S.E. in industrial engineering at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga , the M.Div. at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (before it radically changed in the 1990s), the M.A. in formative spirituality at Duquesne University , the M.A. in liturgy at the University of Notre Dame , and the S.T.M. in liturgy at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia . These institutions have been very formative for him - it was the Southern Baptist Seminary that opened him to becoming an avid Lutheran, and it was the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia that steeped him in the Lutheran confessions and a wonderful sense of community.  

Pastor Russell has a passion for liturgy, if only because it has so influenced and shaped him. In addition to his studies (both formal and informal) in liturgy, he has photographed about 2,500 churches around the nation, collected way too many bulletins (including some going back to the 1880s), and collected too many hymnals and liturgy books.

Pastor Russell's e-mail address is lutheranpenguin@earthlink.com .